


Perversion

by VinHampton



Category: Original Work
Genre: Confusion, Crimes & Criminals, Dark Past, Fiction, Moscow, Organized Crime, Original Character(s), POV Female Character, POV First Person, POV Original Character, Power Play, Prostitution, Russia, Russian Mafia, Sex Work, Sexual Confusion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-02
Updated: 2014-06-02
Packaged: 2018-02-03 04:10:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1730651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VinHampton/pseuds/VinHampton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vin realises Russia isn't as perfect as it seems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perversion

"Voronov." Yuri’s voice was deep and booming. His was a commanding presence, despite his age and the greying of his hair. He strode into the gym where the training session was taking place, followed faithfully by his Adrianna, whose footsteps - which may or may not have been a conscious effort to assert him as alpha - mirrored his own. Left, right, left, right, arms swinging by their sides. "Voronov!" He repeated, louder, a vision in his immaculate grey pinstriped suit and blood red cravat. 

It took a minute for me to register that I was the one who he was calling for. I had only been on the programme for two months and I had not yet got used to my alias enough to have an immediate reaction to it. I looked up from my position on the floor, holding my trainer in a lock between my thighs. 

Our days were busy and the only time we got to ourselves during our training year were weekends and our bedtime, seven hours, during which we were usually so exhausted, we’d be asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillows. Each day began in the same way. Up at 6 and straight out onto the obstacle course, sweating the sleep out of our systems. The trick with the obstacle course, I found, was to practise it in your head the night before. The course never changed and simply thinking about an action, I learnt, would improve your muscle memory. 

After a month, I could have run that course with my eyes closed. 100m sprint, followed by a high wall-climb, after which you negotiated a suspended bridge, the swung from a rope across the lake, ran through a track of tyres and crawled under a net. This was followed by another 100m sprint, a quick stint on monkey bars and a run over five hurdles. Once this was done, we were to drop for 25 push ups and 25 sit ups, and then were allowed to lie back on the grass and breathe for five minutes before we were quickly herded off to breakfast, smelling collectively of swine. Breakfast was hardly a social event. We had 20 minutes to finish it before we were asked to go and prepare for the day’s training. 

Fridays were physical. I had an hour-long target practice session after breakfast, followed by two hours of programming before lunch. Then, we had a half-hour session of collective meditation, followed by an entire afternoon of martial arts training. We all trained in Sambo, and I found I had a knack for it. My legs were strong and so there were moves and locks I preferred over others. I compensated for my lack of upper body strength with plenty of blocking and defensive moves. It all evened out in the end, and the hours of sparring on a Friday afternoon, I found, helped me clear my head. There were times I almost thought of myself as a machine. I had never been so fit in my life, nor so in tune with my every muscle. It was almost a monastic existence. We ate meagre food, we did not drink or smoke. We were to be weapons, and we were to treat our bodies with the utmost respect. It was a hard life and required a lot of personal sacrifice. One of the girls who was admitted with me tried to leave after three months, deeming it too hard for her, and was shot on the spot. She knew too much. We all did. We had sold ourselves, signed ourselves in. This was to be our life. But I knew it was better than the alternative - go to prison for murdering my husband. This life was hard, but I was learning skills I could not have learnt anywhere else. Already I had started to speak two new languages (my Russian was getting better every day, and I loved Arabic passionately), and I had found my calling in codes. I was receiving the education I had always wanted. Yes, it was unconventional, but I was safe, I had a bed, I had hot food every evening. 

"El-e-na Vo-ro-nov!" He said a third time, sounding out each syllable like percussion.  
"Da, Ser!" I rose to my feet quickly, clasping my hands together behind my back and standing straight. 

His face softened, or it was a trick of the light. Adrianna clung to his arm, her face tanned and scarred and bearing evidence to the plights of her life. To say she was not fond of me would be an understatement. She was jealous of the attention that Yuri paid me. And yet, Yuri never once laid a hand on me. Now that I look back, I suspect he let her think we were having an affair simply to keep her in check. She complained about me once - I heard her through the walls, shouting at him. And then silence. The next morning, she came to breakfast with a split lip and I never heard her shout at him again, but she never quite made eye contact with me anyway, and grimaced whenever he called my name. 

"Your reaction time is disappointing," he said, brushing Adrianna off so she let go of his arm and slouched beside him.  
"Apologies, Sir," I said. "I will be better next time."  
"Yes, I am sure you will. Come with me."

I looked at my trainer, who dared not second-guess Yuri, and removed my helmet as I followed him into the corridor leading to our dormitories. 

"Elena, I will require you to attend dinner with me tonight," he announced. "Go and clean yourself, and wear the dress that is on your bed. Leave your hair down and put on some lipstick. I expect you to be ready to leave by 6."

I nodded obediently and made for my dorm. 

—-

Fresh from my shower, and with a small bruise blossoming under the skin of my stomach from where I had failed to defend myself against an offensive blow (no organ damage, no internal bleeding, only subcutaneous and purpling. It would disappear in a week or so), I examined the dress that had been laid out on my bed. It was long, with a slit right up to the thigh, and completely backless. I looked at the label: Dior. A far cry from the grey uniform I had been so used to wearing now. 

I slipped it on, wondering how much it had cost, and looked at myself in the mirror. A woman blinked back at me. Not a widow, not a murderer, not a fuck-up, not a faceless weapon for a Russian mob; A woman. An /attractive/ woman with a small waist and round hips and young, supple skin. I let my hair fall past my shoulders and skim my breasts and I put my hands on either side of my waist, then turned around. My pale skin contrasted well with the vibrant colour of the dress, and my bottom was rounder than I thought it was. Shapelier. I let my hands follow its curve down to my thighs. For the first time in a long time, I looked at myself in the mirror and liked what I saw. 

I was slicking on my lipstick as Yuri came into the room, an enigmatic smile on his face. He whistled once as he walked toward me, then stood behind me, looking at us both in the mirror. 

"You look beautiful, Voronov. Effulgent, dazzling, lustrous. Like a jewel." He produced a small box from his jacket pocket and opened it up to reveal a small round ruby on a silver chain. He put it around my neck and fastened it, pushing my hair to one side and exposing one shoulder. "My Ruby," he said, kissing my shoulder. I looked down, a blush starting in my cheeks. It felt inappropriate, but good in the most subversive way possible. I felt charged. I /wanted/ him to objectify me. He was, after all, the man who owned me, the man who kept me, the man who had saved me from my fate. It would have been like making love to my father, and the thought disgusted me as equally as it aroused me. The hairs on my arms stood on end as he put his hand on my waist and led me out of the door. 

Adrianna watched from her window, fag burning from between her lips, as Yuri helped me into the car. I did not know back then that the man driving the car was to become one of the greatest loves of my life. That was still over a year away. That evening, he was only a crop of black hair and a hand on a steering wheel. 

Yuri leaned in close enough to talk to me in a hushed, conspiratorial tone. “We are going to The National Hotel.” I had heard about this luxurious building and had only ever dreamed of seeing it. “We are meeting with a very important man, my Ruby. His name is Olaf Gruzinsky. He is a diamond dealer and I would like some more of the money he is making.” I did not understand how I could possibly be of any help in this transaction, but I nodded, listening carefully. 

Yuri smiled, as charming as always. “We protect him, you understand, but he is not paying us enough for this. So there are two ways this evening can go.” I looked at him wide-eyed as he leant in even closer. “If he refuses to comply, then I will have Ali waiting for him in his room. We will no longer require him if he will not cooperate, do you understand this, Ruby?”

I did. “Yes. He would know too much about the operation.”

"Such a bright girl, my jewel." He smiled again and played with a strand of my hair. "If he accepts, he will want a reward, and it will be only fair that he gets it, Ruby. You will see that he gets it, yes?" I gasped softly, because I had entertained the idea that this may be the case, but having confirmation of it sent me into a bit of a panic. 

"I… I…" My first reaction was of defiance. I was clever. I was more than my body. I was not an object. I was me. I was a person. I was not a prostitute. 

"I know it is a little bit overwhelming, moya dorogaya devotchka. But I ask you because I trust you more than all the others. You are my favourite, you see? He is not a bad man, but men can be lonely; you only have to make him feel not lonely, that is all. I will have Ivan wait outside the hotel for you, and you can come back home. If he tries to hurt you, I will have him killed. You are safe, Ruby."

It was awful, and it went against every conviction I had ever held about myself, about my womanhood, about my life. So why was I wet at the thought? Was it Yuri’s breath on my neck? Or the idea bubbling in my mind that I held the power in this situation? The idea that a man would be willing to hand over a large cut of his profits simply for my company. The seed of subversion that had started with Yuri’s kiss only continued until all that existed was my groin and whatever it was that was pulsing there throughout the entire dinner, aided by the headiness of expensive Shiraz. 

It was like trying not to think of the number eleven. The harder I fought against the idea turning me on, the more it turned me on, until it became clear that the trick was not to fight it at all, but to embrace it. 

—

I did not embrace Olaf. I knelt over his sofa as he went about making himself feel less lonely. I remember that his hands were cold and he smelt of newspapers and dust. I remember the sounds he made as he came, grunting, panting. I remember I derived no satisfaction from the experience except a marriage of arousal and utter shock at myself for having gone through with it. I felt used up and powerful all at the same time. 

Back in my dorm, I lay on my stomach and quietly rubbed myself against my hand and thought of nobody in particular until the sickly sweet orgasm shook me and sleep overtook me. The weekend came and went and by Monday, the experience could very well have been a dream. I was up at 6, negotiating the obstacle course and everything was the same except for the twinge between my legs whenever I thought of what had happened, a feeling halfway between stomach ache and pressing and pure need.


End file.
